[Edaily Reporter Park Jung-Soo ] On the 28th, KB Securities assessed SamsungElectronics(005930)as the stock set to benefit the most from China’s expanding investment in artificial intelligence (AI) data centers. The firm did not provide an investment rating or target price.
Kim Dong-won, Head of Research at KB Securities, analyzed, “Global AI data center investment is expected to unfold in a two-power structure, with the U.S. leading the market and China accelerating growth,” adding, “The AI infrastructure investment cycle has only just begun.”
KB Securities forecasts that U.S. AI data center capacity will expand 2.2-fold from 55 GW this year to 121 GW by 2030, while China’s capacity will double from 40 GW to 80 GW over the same period. The report explains that while hyperscalers such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are making large-scale investments in the U.S., AI investments by major cloud service providers (CSPs) in China—including Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent—are also growing rapidly.
Cumulative investment in AI data centers in the U.S. and China is estimated to reach approximately $5 trillion from this year through 2030. The capacity of AI data centers in both countries is projected to grow 2.1-fold, from 95 GW this year to 201 GW in 2030. The average annual investment is expected to exceed 1,800 trillion won.
In particular, considering the advancement of AI models, increasing demand for inference, and the expanding adoption of proprietary AI accelerators, the report projected that this trend would go beyond simple data center expansion to simultaneously increase both the computational performance and memory capacity per server.
SamsungElectronics is also expected to benefit from China’s semiconductor localization policy. This is because Chinese AI accelerators have lower computational efficiency than NVIDIA GPUs, requiring more accelerators and memory to process the same volume of AI computations.
The report also assessed that a technological and product competitiveness gap still exists between China’s CXMT and SamsungElectronics in the high-performance server DRAM market. In particular, it was noted that China’s four major CSPs—Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance—are not only seeking long-term memory supply agreements (LTAs) with SamsungElectronics but are also requesting foundry outsourcing partnerships for the production of their proprietary AI accelerators (ASICs).
Director Kim stated, “As AI investment in China expands, SamsungElectronics will benefit even more,” adding, “SamsungElectronics is the biggest beneficiary of increased investment in Chinese AI data centers.”